What Is Your Employee Value Proposition?

MSCI is excited to partner with Dr. Jia Wang on a new Human Capital Management Series that will bring our members best practices and information to help tackle human capital challenges. Dr. Wang’s series is part of a larger effort by MSCI to provide leadership development programs, industry intelligence and data, and thought leadership webinars to aid industrial metals companies with employee recruitment and retention.

Whenever I have had the chance to interact with a CEO or a senior manager, I’ve asked my standard question: Who do you consider are talents worth developing in your organization? Without fail, I have been given a consistent response: All my employees.

When I talk to employees, however, the responses are not the same: “I don’t feel valued,” “my opinion does not matter here,” “my supervisor could care less about me,” “I have no future in my company,” and “I feel stuck in my current position.” The list can go on and on. As an HR practitioner early in my career, and now a human resource development researcher, I have witnessed a number of organizational failures due to poor people management.

As a result, over the years, I have taken an increased interest in understanding the way organizations manage their employees. While it may sound like a cliché, I often ended up with the same conclusion: There is a discrepancy between values on paper and values in practice. Therefore, I am not surprised that so many organizations today are still struggling with the same personnel issues from a decade ago, despite the abundance of HR related publications that offer a diversity of strategies, tools, and best practices in people management.

This struggle in managing people has become paramount to organizations in a new era where a multi-generation workforce, the onslaught of digital disruptions, and valuing people as human capital have become the new norm in industry.

In our 2018 book “Optimizing Human Capital Development: A Distributor’s Guide to Building a Sustainable Competitive Advantage through Talent Strategy,” published by National Association of Wholesaler-Distributors (NAW), my colleagues, Drs. Barry Lawrence and Bharani Nagarathnam, and I present a core value proposition underpinning this book: “Each member of the organization, regardless of his or her job title or position, has talent within; and when that talent is properly identified and developed, the individual has the potential to make positive contributions to the organization’s mission.”

If we decode this proposition, it consists of two essential ideas. The first idea is that talent resides within every member of an organization. This belief is hopeful and positive thinking and will only become the reality when the second part of the proposition is taken into consideration. That is, the talent needs to be properly identified and developed. To properly identify and develop talent requires a number of conditions, including having the right culture, strategies, tools, and expertise.

Of these, culture is the foundation. Without proper culture, talent development efforts will not be fruitful.

Industrial metals companies have invested time and energy to develop an appealing customer value proposition. This is highly understandable because boosting sales is the ultimate goal for sales organizations, and creating meaningful customer experiences is a means to accomplishing this goal. Yet, providing customers with unforgettable experiences requires highly committed and engaged employees, which can be a huge challenge when many companies already struggle with recruiting the right talent and retaining top performers.

To add to complexity, the COVID-19 pandemic we have experienced during the past two years has created many new HR related challenges. For companies in the metals industry, there is no better time than NOW to put people at the center of organization management.

The first step is to craft a compelling employee value proposition, so that your employees will have a quality experience within your company. To help you jump start the thought process, here are a few questions:

• What do you value about each of your employees?
• Do you treat employees as an asset for investment or an operational cost?
• What experience do you want your employees to gain from your company?
• What stories do you want your employees to tell your external customers about the company?
• What career path do you want to provide to your employees?
• How can you keep your employees excited about coming to work each day?
• What action steps can you take to show your employees that they are truly valued and appreciated?

To achieve the desired business outcomes, you must first understand how you perceive people, because how you view them (their strengths, contributions, and potential) directly influences the strategies you will adopt to manage and develop your employees.

Remember: A compelling employee value proposition can serve as your company brand to attract and retain the right talent you need. So, carve out some time in your busy schedule and make human capital development your priority.

Dr. Jia Wang is a professor in the Department of Educational Administration and Human Resource Development at Texas A&M University. Her research focuses on international and national human resource development, organization crisis management, and learning within organizations.